Sudan’s bloodied Darfur region set to see ceasefire
By Mohamed Ali Saeed
KHARTOUM, April 11 (AFP) — A ceasefire to end a year-long conflict between the government and western Darfur rebels that has claimed more than 10,000 lives was to go into effect at 8:00 pm Sunday (1700 GMT), a governor told AFP.
But in a sign the region remains volatile, eight civilians were reportedly kidnapped, although it was not clear if rebels, bandits or pro-government militia were to blame.
The ceasefire “signals an approaching peace in Darfur,” South Darfur state governor Adam Hamid Mussa said in announcing details of the renewable 45-day ceasefire hammered out after tough talks in Chad on Thursday.
The government and the rebels from the Sudan Liberation Movement (SLM) and Justice and Equality Movement (JEM) also agreed to guarantee safe passage for humanitarian aid to the stricken region, to free prisoners of war, and disarm militias blamed for much of the violence.
The war, which erupted in February last year, is described by the United Nations as the world’s worst current humanitarian disaster. It has displaced about 670,000 inside Sudan, while some 100,000 more have fled into neighbouring Chad.
The government reportedly started to implement the ceasefire Saturday night by releasing about 60 suspected rebels captured in North Darfur state.
The Sudanese Media Center (SMC), which is close to the government, quoted informed sources as saying 59 rebels were released on orders of the security and intelligence chief, Major General Salah Abdallah.
North Darfur governor Osman Yusuf Kibir stressed his commitment to the truce at a ceremony to release the prisoners in the state capital Al-Fashir, added the Akhbar Al Youm daily, which placed the number of released prisoners at 63.
Trumpeting the ceasefire, Kibir was quoted as saying “the winners were Darfur and Sudan” and urged the released prisoners to “forget the bitterness and participate in the development and peace in Darfur.”
Ministers who helped negotiate the ceasefire also expressed the government’s commitment to the provisions, including to disarm the militias.
“The government is determined to bring the militias under control so that those groups will not violate the ceasefire,” State Foreign Minister Al-Tigani Salih Fidhail told a Saturday night press conference in Khartoum.
He added that the government would halt its anti-rebel propaganda.
The Janjawid, Arab militias allied to government troops, have been accused by the UN and non-governmental organisations of “ethnic cleansing” and atrocities against civilians in the poverty-stricken, largely desert Darfur region.
Investment Minister Al-Sherif Ahmed Omar Badr added that President Omar al-Beshir had given orders for people displaced by the fighting to be helped return to their villages before the rainy season in mid-May.
During the kidnapping, gunmen stopped a bus on the road to Al-Fashir and took away eight passengers, the SMC reported, without providing further details.
The rebels in Darfur, a region populated by non-Arab Muslims, contend that their region has been marginalised by the Arab, Muslim authorities in Khartoum.
They also fear the exclusion of their region from a power and wealth-sharing accord in the final stages of negotiation between Khartoum and separatist rebels who have been at war in the mainly Christian south.
That conflict has become the longest in Africa, and has claimed an estimated 1.5 million lives since 1983, though both sides said on Saturday a deal is still a few days off.
The government and the Darfur rebels have committed themselves to meeting again within two weeks in Chad for new negotiations over political issues.
Two previous ceasefires had been agreed through Chadian mediation by the Sudanese government and the SLM, but not the JEM. But these collapsed relatively quickly.